I’m going to analyse some examples of international branding using Oosthuizen’s “ The Core Value Model”.

An example of successful international branding is McDonald’s and its “ Golden Arches”; one immediately pictures fast food and American culture.According to the psychologist Louis Cheskin, the round M represents a mother’s breasts.

Breasts can be seen as a symbol of nourishment that connect the individual with his mother at an unconscious level. According to Oosthuizen’s Core Value Model, core values are composed by universal symbols that can be understood by everyone.

Those symbols represent innate values and one of them is the procreation factor. Virtually anywhere in the world an individual regardless of language, sex, age, culture, will be able to identify the female breasts as a source of food, universal belonging and family.

When it comes to the other levels of communication presented by Oosthuizen, McDonald’s demonstrates efficient marketing since it localizes its strategies respecting and answering to religious demands such as the vegetarian burgers in India, the non pork menu in the Middle East and offering espresso coffee in Argentina and Portugal.

McDonald’s, built up a global message and it is being localizing it throughout the years.

Heineken is an example of international branding that failed one of its projects, due to lack of attention to learned values. Heineken’s logos carry universal symbols such as the star and the smile in its 3 Es and those can communicate globally.

However, according to Williamson ( 2013) it failed when trying to launch a featured bottle with the world cup finalists. Heineken designed featured bottles of beer containing the flags of the countries that were in the world cup . Saudi Arabia was featured and the country’s flag contains a verse from the Koran.

After the bottles were released, not only Saudi Arabia but all the Arab world were outraged because their religious verse was linked to alcohol. Long story short, Heineken had to recall all the bottles and create a new design.

Although Heineken was not trying to market alcohol to the Arab countries it created social commotion by not paying attention on local religious values.

In conclusion, it is fundamental to align universal elements that can effectively communicate a company’s brand and local adaptation of services and products.